Saturday September 23rd, the new Black-owned Bed Stuy gallery HOUSING, founded by Eileen Isagon Skyers and KJ Freeman, opened its doors with a group show titled Untitled Passage, on view until October 23 and featuring works by Khari Johnson-Ricks, Brandon Drew Holmes, Ginssiyo Apara, Kali Flowers, and Pastiche Lumumba.

Eileen Isagon Skyers

KJ Freeman

Guests at the opening of Untitled Passage

Dedicated to supporting artists of color, last month, Skyers told ArtNews that “the gallery aims to de-gentrify the space,” previously occupied by American Medium gallery. With Untitled Passage, Skyers and Freeman have put together a show astute to layered narratives of displacement that feels poised to bring in a new audience. When they were installing, Freeman told me Lumumba’s painting, which reads “Drake is the light skinned nigga Kanye said he wouldn’t let come back in style” (in the font of Drake’s 2015 mixtape), was visible from the street. A guy walking by busted up laughing.

Ginssiyo Apara and Negashi Armada

RAFiA Santana with work by Brandon Drew Holmes

HOUSING has plans for solo shows by Keijaun Thomas, RAFiA Santana, and American Artist, in the coming months, as well as a group show with Parker Bright, Hamishi Farah, Sean-Kierre Lyons, and Bri Willians to open at the end of October.

“A brief meditation for the periphery, the inbetweens and the others” by Khari Johnson-Ricks (2017)